Copying machines provided with the copying function or facsimile function, printer function, scanner function, etc., or multifunction peripherals (MFPs), etc., (hereinafter, all these are collectively called image forming apparatuses) are coming into widespread use. The operation rate of such image forming apparatuses is high and also they have a large number of consumable parts, and since it is necessary to carry out their periodic maintenance and inspection, at the time that the service personnel install the image forming apparatus at the user's premises, connect the image forming apparatus with the managing apparatus via a communication network, and register the image forming apparatus in the managing apparatus. Next, the managing apparatus obtains apparatus information such as the number of pages printed, usage frequency, maintenance history, replacement history of various types of parts, etc., from the image forming apparatus, and manages the image forming apparatus based on that apparatus information.
Here, as the method of communicating the apparatus information, the methods being used conventionally are, the method of connecting the managed apparatus such as image forming apparatuses and the managing apparatus via telephone lines or fax lines and carrying out transmission and reception via analog telephone lines by modulating the data signals using a modem, and the method of transmitting and receiving the data signals via digital telephone lines such as ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) (hereinafter referred to as the telephone line method).
Further, a method is being used in which the managed apparatus and the managing apparatus are connected via a communication network such as the Internet, converting emails describing the data into packets, and carrying out transmission and reception via a mail server (hereinafter referred to as the electronic mail method).
Further, a method has also been proposed of using an HTTP server such as a WebDAV (Distributed Authoring and Versioning protocol for the WWW) server, and carrying out writing and reading of data between the managing apparatus and each of the managed apparatuses (hereinafter referred to as the HTTP method). In addition, systems have also been proposed in which the transmission and reception of data is carried out using a communication method selected from a plurality of communication methods (see, for example, the following Patent Documents 1 and 2).
Since in the above HTTP method, unlike the conventional telephone line method or electronic mail method, the managed apparatus and the managing apparatus that are connected carry out data transmission and reception with a single WebDAV server, if the time of periodic reading or writing the apparatus information (hereinafter referred to as the periodic communication time) is the same for all managed apparatuses, there is the problem that the accesses to the server become concentrated.
In answer to this problem, it is possible to think of a method in which the service personnel adjusts so as to set different default periodic communication times for each of the individual managed apparatuses. However, a very large amount of time and labor will be required for adjusting the default periodic communication times for all the managed apparatuses connected to the HTTP server, also, there was the problem that bias will be present in the periodic communication time if adjusted manually.
The present invention was made in view of the above problems, and an important object of the present invention is to provide a management system and managed apparatus as well as a method of managing that avoid concentrated server accesses during periodic communication and make efficient management possible.